[*A Vegetable Creeper Found Growing On The Rocks, Which Yields,
On Infusion In Hot Water, A Sweet Astringent Taste, Whence It Derives
Its Name:
To its virtues the healthy state of the soldiery and convicts
must be greatly attributed.
It was drank universally.]
On the 24th instant the 'Supply' arrived from Norfolk Island,
and Lord Howe Island, bringing from the latter place three turtles.
An awful and terrible example of justice took place towards the close
of this month, which I record with regret, but which it would be disingenuous
to suppress. Six marines, the flower of our battalion, were hanged
by the public executioner, on the sentence of a criminal court,
composed entirely of their own officers, for having at various times
robbed the public stores of flour, meat, spirits, tobacco,
and many other articles.
CHAPTER IV.
Transactions of the Colony in April and May, 1789.
An extraordinary calamity was now observed among the natives. Repeated
accounts brought by our boats of finding bodies of the Indians in all the coves
and inlets of the harbour, caused the gentlemen of our hospital to procure
some of them for the purposes of examination and anatomy. On inspection,
it appeared that all the parties had died a natural death: pustules,
similar to those occasioned by the small pox, were thickly spread
on the bodies; but how a disease, to which our former observations had led us
to suppose them strangers, could at once have introduced itself,
and have spread so widely, seemed inexplicable.* Whatever might be the cause,
the existence of the malady could no longer be doubted. Intelligence
was brought that an Indian family lay sick in a neighbouring cove:
the governor, attended by Arabanoo, and a surgeon, went in a boat immediately
to the spot. Here they found an old man stretched before a few lighted sticks,
and a boy of nine or ten years old pouring water on his head, from a shell
which he held in his hand: near them lay a female child dead,
and a little farther off, its unfortunate mother: the body of the woman
shewed that famine, superadded to disease, had occasioned her death:
eruptions covered the poor boy from head to foot; and the old man was
so reduced, that he was with difficulty got into the boat. Their situation
rendered them incapable of escape, and they quietly submitted to be led away.
Arabanoo, contrary to his usual character, seemed at first unwilling
to render them any assistance; but his shyness soon wore off, and he treated
them with the kindest attention. Nor would he leave the place until
he had buried the corpse of the child: that of the woman he did not see
from its situation; and as his countrymen did not point it out,
the governor ordered that it should not be shown to him. He scooped a grave
in the sand with his hands, of no peculiarity of shape, which he lined
completely with grass, and put the body into it, covering it also with grass;
and then he filled up the hole, and raised over it a small mound with the earth
which had been removed.
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